[sf-lug] Jim Stockford (and/or others?): Do you have old list emails?

[Michael Paoli]

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] Jim Stockford (and/or others?): Do you have  
> old list emails?
> Date: Mon, 27 May 2019 12:32:33 -0700

> Quoting Jim Stockford (jim at well.com):
>
>> what time period?
>
> As to SF-LUG's mailing list, any postings before Dec. 26, 2005.
>
>
> I'm pretty certain the archive is 100% complete since December 26 (heh,
> my least favourite day of the entire year for personal historical
> reasons), 2005, when I provided SF-LUG with a home after its initial

Yea!  Glad to hear it's (SF-LUG) complete (or very to highly probably so)
ever since linuxmafia.com has been so graciously hosted it there.

> mailing list elsewhere fell victim to some accident.  (ISTR I never
> heard _exactly_ what happened to the initial mailing list.
>
> For possible interest, here's my first posting after the re-hosting on
> my server (on New Year's Eve, 2005):
> http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2005q4/000003.html
>
> I see that, at that time, it was expected that the new home I offered to
> SF-LUG's mailing list would be temporary until the group got back fully
> onto its own feet.  (But y'all are perfectly welcome to stay, just to be
> clear.)  Quoting:
>
>   First, just a few words about the current situation, since we-all
>   simply popped up on linuxmafia.com like mushrooms in the spring.  Jim and a
>   friend are still busy working on restoring the _real_ SF-LUG mailing
>   list and Web site, and I believe are considering hosting options.
>   Meanwhile, I offered to give the mailing list a temporary home on my
>   Mailman-equipped Linux server, linuxmafia.com.  (Yr. welcome.  Glad to
>   help.)
>   [...]
>   SF-LUG is welcome to use my machine's facilities as long as it
>   wants, but I anticipate that we'll want to move it to SF-LUG's _own_
>   machine in good time.

Ah, "temporary" ... ;-)
Not that I'm expecting a particularly useful "thread" to start on it,
but I know there have sometimes been, uh, "discussions" (and/or
lack thereof) ... regarding SF-LUG list ... e.g. change of domain,
but not necessarily hosting - even as much as some person(s)
ill-advisedly changing DNS to point list/email stuff at
linuxmafia.com's hosting without bothering to even properly coordinate
with the list(/mail/sys)admin and just hoping(/thinking?) it would
"just work" like that.  8-O  I know I'd suggested otherwise (and I'm sure
you, Rick, also quite said similar), about possible ways to do that
"the right way" ... and relevant coordination ... but I think that
most stalled and never really went anywhere (other than the
inappropriate DNS bits that were put in getting suitably corrected
to stop the brokenness that had been added).
Anyway, good regular backups are in place for the archive
(raw mbox format) and roster - that's the more critical bit.
The rest, not so much.

And one of the things I at least occasionally remind folks of -
should, as feasible (also) optimize minimizing dumping unneeded work
atop freely donated resources especially where those resources are
(relatively) limited (e.g. person's time where they may be only willing
to deal with so much volunteered "work"/headache/time).

Yeah, folks often underappreciate the "costs"/work of what they get
for free.  :-/

> I _still_ am curious about what happened, Jim.  To the original mailing
> list incarnation chez vous, that is.
>
> Anyway, unless I'm missing something, the only traffic missing in the
> SF-LUG mailing list's case is anything prior to the linuxmafia.com
> incarnation, i.e., prior to 2005-12-26.
>
> Any of that pre-Dec. 26, 2005, that anyone happens to still have, in any
> format, I'll be glad to figure out how to merge into the existing
> archive.  Anyone who still has copies, talk to me _offlist_, please.

Yep, that's why I'd asked Jim about the same time I was (mostly) asking
regarding BALUG.  As far as I'm aware he's the only person thus far
that's said/mentioned (off-list, or not) that he's got much
older emails (my paraphrasing, but no means direct quote) ...
most notably having save the old emails, including from various
[L]UG lists, and going way back (on various systems at different
times, and I believe/presume on various older drives).

Anyway, I'm mostly interested in getting "missing" (or better/
preferred) BALUG list emails suitable for archive.  And, sort'a a
"while we're at it", not much incremental work for me (and I'm guestimating
also Jim), to effective grab/check SF-LUG at same time - see if
anything at all shows up there as "missing" that ought be in archive
(and from the more recent list postings, sounds like it's rather
improbable to find any "missing" bits - so perhaps not worth
bothering to check for SF-LUG ... notwithstanding the stuff *prior*
to linuxmafia.com hosting the SF-LUG list(s) - that may still be well
worth it).

> FWIW, I wax hot and cold about whether completism about re-finding
> and merging old mailing list traffic is worth the trouble.  Honestly,
> hardly anyone bothers to read old LUG postings.  On the other hand, it's
> the history of Linux user groups, and IMO it should be a point of pride
> that we don't throw away our work, and protect it.

Yep, not a (super)high priority at all, but would be a "good to have",
and if someone (e.g. Jim) can come up with the older emails - in e.g.
mbox format, or anything I can more-or-less convert to such or similar
for processing (without too much difficulty), I'm certainly interested
in grabbing the relevant data, doing the conversion(s), checking for
any missing (or less preferred format) and restoring to archive what
would ideally be there - at least that can be semi-reasonably found and
reinjected.  And, yeah, I'm willing to do most all the work on that.

> One place where I did work making sure early LUG history isn't lost is
> at Silicon Valley Linux User Group.  The SVLUG mailing list _Web_
> archive started at 1998 for a long time -- which is certainly an

> Mailman-managed mbox, and the regenerated the Web archive.  Now, SVLUG's
> mailing list traffic is on the Web going all the way back to 1997.
>
> That may not be all that pragmatically useful, but there's a certain
> geeky grandeur to it, I'd say.

Woo hoo!  Yeah, I'd say that's pretty darn impressive.

Would be nice if we (er, mostly I?  Well, along with some archived email
Jim or somebody might have) could manage to restore more of SF-LUG's
(list archive) history ... certainly not at all critical to do so, but
would be cool.

Also as for Linux history, and history thereof in the Bay Area, I think
SF-LUG is among those that go back the furthest in history ... not sure the
precise ordering, but I think "oldest" among LUGs in the bay area, in
approximate order, would be
SVLUG
BALUG
BAD
SF-LUG
... but I might not have the order quite right, and I'm not fully sure
which are the 4 or 5 LUGs that had the earliest start in the Bay Area
(or same for such that still exist).